Taking a tough stand against former Army chief General V K Singh for his statement about the Army paying cash to politicians in Jammu & Kashmir, the State Legislative Council privileges committee, Thursday, issued him summons through the Haryana Police for his presence before it on January 22.

This followed Singh’s failure to appear before the panel in response to a notice issued to him earlier, seeking his appearance over the statement. The matter was referred to the panel following uproar by legislators who, during the Council’s summer session, accused General Singh of maligning their image.

“As retd General V K Singh has preferred not to be present before the privileges committee, all its members under the chairmanship of Congress’s Jugal Kishore Sharma, have decided to summon him before it on January 22 at 2.30 pm in the state legislature complex in civil secretariat in Jammu,” said National Conference MLA Devender Rana who is also a member of the privileges committee. The summons will be served by Director General of Police, Haryana, he said.

“However, if he fails to appear before us on this date, the law is very clear on the issue. The other options available to us are written in the book,” Rana said. General Singh had sparked a controversy when he was reacting to a story published in The Indian Express about an internal audit by the Army, which referred to an alleged payment of Rs 1.15 crore to Ghulam Hassan Mir — a minister in Omar Abdullah’s cabinet. General Singh had purportedly stated that the Army had also been paying other politicians for particular jobs in the Valley. This outraged members of the Legislative Assembly as well as the Legislative Council.